


cologne and sweet leather

by maketea



Series: fictober 2019 [12]
Category: Miraculous Ladybug
Genre: Cuddling, F/M, Fictober 2019, First Kiss, Fluff, Pining, Post Reveal, so much pining oml
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-10-12
Updated: 2019-10-12
Packaged: 2020-12-14 00:58:03
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,776
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21007058
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/maketea/pseuds/maketea
Summary: chat noir treats ladybug to a rooftop dinner, and she can’t seem to keep her feelings in check.





	cologne and sweet leather

**Author's Note:**

> fictober day 12: “what if i don’t see it?”

“Are you sure you’ll be okay getting home by yourself, ma’am?” Ladybug asked. She had a hand on the woman’s back, helping her off the ground. They deakumatised her pretty fast, so the side effects may have not been that bad, but it still felt wrong not to double check.

“Of course,” she said. “I have to meet with my children soon, anyway.” She brought herself to her feet and brushed off her jeans. “Thank you, kids.”

“Anytime, Madame Bouchard!” Chat Noir said.

They saw Madame Bouchard off before taking their own leave. Ladybug unwound her yo-yo from her waist, and Chat Noir extended his baton. They could still make it for fifth and sixth period if they took her shortcut back to school — it was five minutes quicker than the one he used.

They shared a smile, then launched themselves atop the corner shop in front of them.

“Hey, Marinette?” Chat Noir asked, sprinting next to her.

“Yeah?”

“I was thinking… would you like to have dinner together tonight?”

Ladybug slowed to a stop. “Dinner?”

Although reluctantly, Chat Noir stopped, too, and turned around. He was red, refusing to meet her eyes, but still stepping forward so she could hear him. “Yeah.”

“What about your father?”

“I didn’t mean as civilians.” He scratched the back of his head. “I just wanted to fix something up for this evening. We haven’t really hung out since… well, you know.”

She did know. 

And Ladybug missed it, too. Neither of them handled their grand reveal spectacularly — but in their defence, there was nothing grand nor spectacular about bumping into each other mid-detransformation and freezing in shock. 

There was certainly nothing grand nor spectacular about Marinette’s subsequent panicking, but that part — compared to everything else that had happened — was the most predictable.

A foul mix of knowing something she shouldn’t have and embarrassing herself in front of Chat Noir aka Adrien aka the boy she was  _ in love with _ made Marinette steer clear of him for at least a week. In fact, it could have even been two weeks, if Alya hadn’t prodded hard enough to snap her back to normal.

“I’d love to,” she said. “Where should we meet?”

“Actually, it’s a surprise.” He started walking across the shingles next to her. “Just come towards the buildings in front of your balcony. You’ll know it when you see it.”

“What if I don’t see it?”

“Trust me.” Chat Noir beamed at her. “You will.”

◦◦,`°.✽✦✽.◦.✽✦✽.°`,◦◦

Ladybug groaned, leaned into her vanity mirror, and wiped off her lipstick for the third time. She sighed, then looked from her lipstick to her stained makeup remover pad. Nobody told her how useless makeup was if you had on a superhero mask.

The red lipstick was pretty, but it was also blatantly obvious. Yes, she wanted Chat Noir to look at her lips. She just didn’t want him to know that she did.

She shoved it back into her makeup bag, not even bothering to check if it went in the correct pocket. Why was she trying so hard, anyway? It was only Chat Noir. She could have turned up to patrol with her hair unbrushed and a dressing gown on and he’d still compare her to the moon. Red lipstick would do nothing more than stain the food he was bringing — and get all over her teeth, too.

But the thought of turning up just as she was made her squirm. 

Ladybug wanted to look pretty for him.

She settled for a bit of powdered blush, and left it on her vanity before going out to her balcony. 

Her heart was in her throat. Out of habit, she almost pulled out her yo-yo and called Alya, almost threw herself into her pink deck chair and whined into the receiver about how she wasn’t ready for this, how her stomach was doing cartwheels, how she was terrified of messing up because the only coherent thing in her mind was how  _ badly  _ she wanted to kiss Chat Noir — and ‘coherent’ was pushing it a little.

Ladybug clambered onto her railing, and swallowed a big gulp of cold air. 

What would Alya say?

_ (Girl, he probably feels the same! Just be honest with him.) _

Ladybug pulled out her yo-yo.

Be honest with him.

That sounded easy enough,

She flew over the street. At first, she passed time thinking about him, about their dinner, about the likelihood of him taking her hand in his and holding it while they ate. 

That proved to be a bad idea when she almost smacked into a lamp post.

“My Lady!” she heard below her.

From her vantage point on top of a chimney, Ladybug followed the voice all the way up to a nearby skyscraper. On the roof was Chat Noir, lowering his hands from their cup around his mouth to smile at her. She could make out a few lit candles around a red tartan picnic blanket, and a woven basket in his fist. Ladybug whipped out her yo-yo and hauled herself towards him.

His grin only widened as she neared him. “You came,” he breathed.

She clasped her hands in front of her. “Of course I did.”

Chat Noir’s cheeks were pink under the candlelight, and he gazed at her in a way that was making her blush, too. They stood — under the candlelight and the moonlight — on either side of the roof, looking at each other.

“Let’s sit down?” He gestured to the blanket.

“Sure.”

Once she took a seat on her knees, Chat Noir rummaged around his basket and brought out a large bottle of a clear, bubbly drink. With it he took out two wine glasses.

Ladybug raised an eyebrow.

“Lemonade,” he clarified.

“I’m not sure if I believe you.”

He left the bottle out on the blanket, and kept the basket open, too. It was filled with cakes, sandwiches, and boxes of fruits, but neither of them touched any of it. Instead, they stared out past the cinderblock barrier, and out at the sleepy city.

It wasn’t quite nighttime, but it was enough of an evening for the streets to be rather empty. Ladybug was lucky she started from home when she did, or — with her Chat Noir-clouded brain paired with the dimmed buildings — she would have done much more than smack into a lamppost.

Though, she supposed, a night like this brought little risk. No cars were below the building they were on, and the ones that were around hummed softly into the wide roads as they drove past. 

“Wow,” she said after a while. “I never really stop to appreciate the view, sometimes.”

“Me neither.” He looked at her. “It’s breathtaking, isn’t it?”

It was. 

He was, too, which was why Ladybug couldn’t bring herself to look back at him. 

She turned her head up, and followed the red light of an aeroplane as it crossed the sky. She took in a deep breath, trying to clear her body of her jittery nerves, but instead had a lungful of Chat Noir’s cologne and the sweet smell of his leather.

What if she leaned in a little closer? If she touched his hand? If she carefully leaned her head against his shoulder just to feel how warm he was, feel his cheek against her hair, feel their bodies rise and fall together after they synced up their breathing? He was right there — and so warm, and so soft, and smelled so nice — how could she not want to curl up in his lap and let him hold her?

A breeze picked up, and Ladybug shielded her eyes as some leaves and flowers blew into her face.

“You have something in your hair,” Chat Noir said. He pointed at it obscurely, then laughed. “Don’t worry, I’ve got it.”

Putting his lemonade down, he leaned forward, bringing his cologne and sweet leather closer to her face, and picked out some dandelion fluff from her fringe.

Perhaps it was his touch, or how her heart was already racing, or breathing him in and feeling his heat and knowing, no matter how much Ladybug told herself she could, she would never be able to live being  _ so close  _ to him, close enough to hear his heartbeat, and not come any closer.

“I’m in love with you,” she said.

No run up. Nothing long enough to let her change her mind midway.

He stared, the dandelion fluff on his finger.

Without a run up, she realised, she would need a run  _ down _ . Except she hadn’t prepared to tell him this tonight.

“God, I—I shouldn’t have just dumped that on you.” She averted her gaze sharply, searching in vain for that aeroplane to gather her bearings. “This isn’t fair on you. I’m really sorry. You’ve loved me for so long, and I could never say it back until  _ now _ . I wouldn’t be mad if you were mad at me, but I just… I had to tell you, because we’re partners, and you’re my best friend, and I—”

She rambled on and on, to the point where she didn’t know what she was saying nor whether it was more to him or to herself.

There was a point where she was sure he wasn’t even listening, and that wasn’t too long after she said the word  _ love _ . He rested back on his haunches, and smiled bashfully the whole time, biting his lip.

She was too tangled in her elaboration, too high on her run down, to feel him coming nearer, to feel his breath on her lips. 

Even when her eyes caught up. Zeroed in on his lips. Ladybug kept murmuring softly, not even listening to herself. 

She never had been, anyways. 

When Chat Noir kissed her, she hummed against his mouth, buzzing from the run down, buzzing for his touch.

He pulled away, and she looked up at hm, dizzy. “Thanks,” she said.

“Thanks?”

Her face coloured. “For making me stop talking.” 

Fondly, Chat Noir reached up, and pressed his fingers into the back of her neck. Her mouth fell open, and Ladybug rolled her head into his touch, into what she had been coveting that whole evening. 

“I know there’s a lot we have to talk about,” he said. “There’s probably a million different things we need to go through together but… what if we just ignored that, for now? Nothing’s saying we have to talk it all through right away.”

She relaxed easily. “Yeah. You’re right.”

Chat Noir opened his arms. Ladybug snuggled into his side.

They sat like that, his arm around her shoulders, her head on his chest, and watched the night deepen.


End file.
